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Friday, August 04, 2006

Richard Cohen column, How simple to ignore that Hezbollah has attacked Israel, reprinted in the Miami Herald. Pretty on point, when talking about the fact that Israel's response started due to the Hizbullah kidnapping and missile attacks, and that it is sustained by the populations fear and anger to the continued rocket attacks. And that many in the world media seem to have forgotten that very quickly. Polls show that the Israeli public backs their government and want it to go even further in attacking Hizbullah. Bottom line: no short or long-term solution will ever be achieved, unless the fears and insecurity of the Israeli public are dealt with.

It is the nature of contemporary war that its causes are soon forgotten. Hezbollah's kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers and its cross-border missile attacks are now a distant memory. More pressing, more urgent -- more compelling by far -- are the horrible images of dead and wounded children. The urge is to change the channel, alter the programming: end the war. The kidnapped soldiers have no on-screen presence. Their plight cannot compare to what happened in the Lebanese village of Qana. It is also useless to point out that the 2,500 or so rockets fired into Israel have been directed mostly at civilian targets. Haifa, after all, is not a military base.

2 comments:

What utterly weak propaganda. Israel has invaded, kidnapped, and bombed Lebanon at will--and it does the same with Palestine--Gaza and the West Bank.

They develop illegal settlements that contravene UN resolutions.

This idea that Hezbollah started it is simply childish excuse making to cover their illegal, criminal bombing campaign.

The only positive of this is that this criminality will work to weaken US/Isreal in the region.

But to recap, using the lame logic of Israel, then other countries have ever right to reduce Telviv to rubble--because Isreal kidnaps and kills, not just soldiers, but innocents on an almost daily basis.

Your feeble agreement with Richard Cohen indicates that you function from a similarly racist logic.

About Me

Bolivian and Nicaraguan parents, born in California. Moved to Nicaragua when I was 7, lived in Nicaragua (twice), El Salvador, Guatemala , Bolivia, Panama, graduated high school Costa Rica. Saw crazy things, had some pretty wacky experiences, met some interesting people in Central and South America in the 70's, 80's and 90's.
Now I live in Miami (original huh?) after a long and cold stint in the American Mid-West.
Blog about stuff that fascinates, obsesses and annoys me here in the US, in Latin America, and everywhere else. In the end I believe in balance; with the need to combine empathy, rationality, historical understanding, humility,respect, imagination, realism, and clear-headed thinking if we want to help others - and ourselves - so we stick around this world for a while. In my experience, people can be really, really nasty, but on the other hand we can be really, really alike in good ways too. Don't care for fundamentalists of all stripes who have all the answers (which of course I do).
As for the rest of 'me', does this look like a damn confessional booth?